


Something a little better than survival

by elebuu



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, NSFW ish, doki dokis, implied nsfw, party time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 16:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8378929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elebuu/pseuds/elebuu
Summary: No more eleventh-hour regrets. The WoL decides it's time to confess.





	

It all started with the smirk.

 

The fear of death had a way of making the Warrior of Light throw herself screaming at an excess of what it meant to be alive, and today’s victory was no exception. After the long bath—adoring her body with pure water, washing away her terror and pain—the whole ragged band had begun to celebrate. The culinarians of the group had drenched them all with lavish meals, sauces and wine overflowing. And—miracle of miracles, _now_ it was a party—he was there, too, drinking deep of some spiced respite, a flush creeping into his ears and cheeks.

 

Cid Garlond leaned easily against a pillar, cheerfully conversing with a throng of Scions who bade him now and then to refill their glasses from the uncorked bottle in his other hand. She washed down the last bite of her supper with a draught of wine, and made straight for him, swiftly across the warmly lit room. Survival granted her a certain temerity, and she meant to make right what had narrowly avoided becoming her final regrets. “Cid,” she beamed at him.

 

“Ah, it’s you, old friend! Thankgods, I was beginning to worry you didn’t make it after all.” He laughed, the sound filling up the whole chamber of his lungs, but he meant it. Cid’s eyes had a way of narrowing into crescent blue slivers of pure joy; his smiles folded their corners and lower lids into windows of acute warmth, eternally youthful. She only just resisted the urge to knock the bottle out of the way and throw her arms around his neck; to burrow into the crook of his bearded jaw, and let his long white hair flutter around her head.

 

She was stunned when she felt his warm, powerful arms scoop her up to her tiptoes in a tight embrace, and he sighed deeply, comfort and relief in it. “Shall I pour you a drink?” he murmured, the heat from his cheeks a touch obvious. She nodded blissfully, unaware of the moment her feet touched the ground and he was away to fetch a glass.

 

From any distance, and any angle, she thought, swallowing a not entirely unexpected hunger; no matter the vantage point, Cid Garlond was breathtaking. She watched him move without caring how flagrant she was being, while she spoke with her friends (gods bless them all, and her eyes stung a little). His broad shoulders undulated as he gestured and reached for a crystal brandy glass; the barest sway of his hips as he walked, thick boots clicking on the floor. In her mind, she was stripping him, viciously, exposing every curve and contour of his strong, lithe body.

 

He soon returned, bearing the glass and its aromatic contents. She felt him lean conspicuously close to her as he delivered it to her hands; a halo, slightly perfumed of spiced wine, encircling his face. For the blur of an evening, they whirled in one another’s orbit as the celebrations continued.

 

At length, Scions, friends, and honoured guests made their way out of the doors to the Rising Stones, leaving only a handful of merrymakers behind. Cid waved fondly as a few more took their leave, and set down his glass on the polished surface of the table they two now shared. “Well,” he sighed, after a time. “I can’t say I’m prepared to call it a night.” A spark of something from his eyes met hers. “I’ve a mind to show you what the Ironworks has been up to of late, if the spirit strikes you.” The fiddle strings of tension between them wound near to breaking.

 

They wouldn’t make it much further than a few moments of his beaming delight, a scaffold of metalwork and a new mesh of aspected aether fibre to show off. She teased him about being more machine than man; he laughed uproariously and nudged her with a shoulder. She might have made a poorly worded jest about hammers; they pitted the strength of the Warrior of Light against that of the Garlean bastard standing at arm’s-length from her, playfully backing towards a wall.

 

She thought this little play-at-war would end with both of them too tired to make any more mischief, until one of her weakened ankles slipped, and she fell forward, an audible _thwomp_ as his chest broke her fall. She had started to laugh, sinking onto his lap to push herself away, when her belly brushed over an unfamiliar resistance. It cut her off mid-giggle, an alarmed twinge accompanying a din of other responses in her flushing head. Lifting her head to search his face for answers told her everything.

 

There was a new, full rose in his skin that suffused the bridge of his nose and deepened the crimson in his cheeks. “Ah, b-bugger,” he stammered, flitting his eyes aside in sudden bashfulness. “I had hoped I wouldn’t—ah—do forgive me, that was not supposed to—I did not intend for you to know that—“ Cid blushed a deeper red with every word, trying to find his composure, and began to ease back from her. She was stunned. As he backed away, as gentlemanly as he could muster, she took his hand. _I’m alive._ Her heart raced until it thundered inside her like an engine piston. _I’m alive, and I want to tell you. I want to tell you now, before I lose my courage again._

 

“Wait…” she pleaded, hardly louder than a whisper. “Cid, I…”

 

Nervously, he stood up straight, lightly folding his hand into hers. “…Yes?”

 

She blinked away an upwelling of dew and forgot herself. On her tiptoes, her face burrowing against his neck—oh, Twelve, the warm silk of his neck, corded tendons flexing and relaxing against her—she threw her arms around him. She brought her lips as close to his ear as she dared. “ _I love you._ ”

 

He seemed to freeze. She was worried her swimming head had said too much, when she felt him melt against her, his warm arms a fortress wrapped around her. “…Aye, well, I suppose it wouldn’t do any good not to admit that’s hardly one-sided.” If he was slurring at all, it was only of shyness now.

 

He wasn’t prepared for her to tilt her hips toward his. “Ehmm—and—“, she continued. His eyes widened until they were discs of sky blue shock. “…I _want_ you.” Her body screamed at her as she felt him grow wholly rigid against her under the etched leather of his belt.


End file.
